Topband: The Stew Perry Low Band Jack/solar conditions on 160m

[Steve Ireland]

G’day

It was great fun to do the Low Band Jack over the weekend.  Conditions were very spotty/spotlighty, typical from here at this point in the solar cycle.

Only 15 QSOs in the log, with two Aussies (VK6GX and VK3IO, the latter of who would have been more active but for high QRN), eight Europeans and five USA. 

Several W5 stations were heard at S5/6 but neither Phil or I could raise them, suggesting either one-way prop or receive antennas pointing away from us. 

As Phil VK6GX warned me before the LBJ, there was nothing heard west of the Rockies, with the skip going out as far as K1LT in eastern OH and K0DI in FL. This type of prop has been present recently, during Phil’s regular visits to 160m.

My 160m signal/reception isn’t as good as it used to be, owing to swapping the single-band inverted vee dipole at 90 feet into a inverted-U doublet at 50 feet, which also functions as a Half Square on 80m and is a super DX antenna for contesting. 

I was very interested to read Steve VE6WZ’s reports on how DX contacts over the North Pole have diminished for him, as solar activity has increased.

In VK6, most of our DX comes in from either the east/north east (USA/Caribbean) and west/north west (Europe/Africa).  Polar propagation (N/S) is there for us at sunspot minimums but doesn’t result in much DX.

Ironically for us here, often the rarest DX is worked relatively close to sunspot maximums, owing to being east-west in direction, where prop is generally encouraged by solar activity. Over the last 30 years, this has for me, for example, included 6Y5, ZF2, VP5, V3, CN, 3V8, 5A and SU. 

I was taught about this propagation ‘anomaly’ many years ago by Mike VK6HD (SK) and it seemed weird, until I looked at an azimuthal map of where the true directions of the various population centres were located from my relatively remote location.  It is all about geography and geometry.  😉

Vy 73

Steve, VK6VZ


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